Working against the clock and a disturbing dream

To avoid strokes...which are more fatal in older women, especially those with various conditions which I have, ie past heart attack, sleep apnea, over weight. I don't know a relationship to COPD, which they didn't mention.

•  Eating five or more servings of fruits or vegetables every day may reduce the risk of stroke. The Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes olive oil, fruit, nuts, vegetables and whole grains, may be helpful.
• Exercise regularly. Aerobic exercise reduces the risk of stroke in many ways. Exercise can lower blood pressure, increase the levels of good cholesterol, and improve the overall health of the blood vessels and heart. Gradually work up to at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most or all days of the week. The American Heart association recommends getting 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week. Moderate intensity activities can include walking, jogging, swimming and bicycling.

SOURCE: Mayo Clinic on Strokes

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I woke up Monday morning with a dream floating close to my reality. 

I dreamed I was preparing to have an interview with Trump. Not as a journalist, but as a chance for a "common woman" to talk with him, ask some questions, and get a photograph taken.

Remember I am totally against all he is, stands for, and spews out of his mouth!

So I had a lot of anxiety built up about this interview, and that was the majority of the dream...I felt the cold sweat of anticipation, the constant thoughts about how I would shake his hand possibly...what was I wearing - was it appropriate, etc.

Then the next instant I was looking at my photo of having stood by his side. 

I kind of skipped the entire interview. I was discussing it with someone, how did I do, etc. The photo showed me in a red outfit, that was all I remember about it. Or was it a video on a phone? It was strange, because even in the dream I tried to figure out what had happened. But the interview obviously had taken place and I must have said my piece, whatever it had been.

Upon waking that dream was really striking to me.

In no way do I wish to meet or talk to the man. 

But dreams are messages of our sub-conscious to ourselves, so what I brought away was: 

1. my high anxiety if he were to be elected President in 2024

2. my high anxiety to confront some Trump people I know with some true facts, in the face of their believing his lies.

3. my ongoing use of visual information to give me reality checks, thus the photo/video

4. reminder of seeing a huge Trump sign on a house nearby which gave me chills (see no. 1 above.)

5. reminder of relatives who tend to repeat misinformation that is published and echoes the Tea Party/GOP line of rhetoric. The language is always trying to prove its misinformation with some round-about statistics that don't mean a thing. I had recently read through some of this.

Another member of my family says it's a good idea to know what the thinking of the other team might be. Not for me. I apparently absorb it into an emotional place which created this dream.

Just thought I'd share an interesting experience that kind of knocked me for a loop. So glad it was just a dream.

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Today's quote:

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. 

-Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)

Morehouse College and Biden's commencement address

I wish Ohio State had had him give their address when my granddaughter graduated several weeks ago.

This inspires me, and I want to keep it around, to consider when I need a boost.

From Heather Cox Richardson's Letters to an American, May 19, 2024

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Delivering the commencement address to the graduating seniors at Morehouse College today, President Joe Biden addressed the nation. After thanking the mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, and all the people who helped the graduates get to the chairs in front of the stage, Biden recalled Morehouse’s history. The school was founded in 1867 by civil rights leader Reverend William Jefferson White with the help of two other Baptist ministers, the Reverend Richard C. Coulter and the Reverend Edmund Turney, to educate formerly enslaved men. They believed “education would be the great equalizer from slavery to freedom,” Biden said, and they created an institution that would make the term “Morehouse man” continue to stand as a symbol of excellence 157 years later. 

Then Biden turned to a speech that centered on faith. Churches talk a lot about Jesus being buried on Friday and rising from the dead on Sunday, he said, “but we don’t talk enough about Saturday, when… his disciples felt all hope was lost. In our lives and the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays—to bear witness the day before glory, seeing people’s pain and not looking away. But what work is done on Saturday to move pain to purpose? How can faith get a man, get a nation through what was to come?” 

It’s a truism that anything that happens before we are born is equidistant from our personal experience, mixing the recent past and the ancient past together in a similar vaguely imagined “before” time. Most of today’s college graduates were not born until about 2002 and likely did not pay a great deal of attention to politics until about five years ago. Biden took the opportunity to explain to them what it meant to live through the 1960s. 

He noted that he was the first in his family to graduate from college, paid for with loans. He fell in love, got a law degree, got married and took a job at a “fancy law firm.” 

But his world changed when an assassin murdered the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King—a Morehouse man—and the segregated city of Wilmington, Delaware, erupted with fires, looting, fights, and occasional gunfire. For nine months, the National Guard patrolled the city in combat gear,  “the longest stretch in any American city since the Civil War,” Biden recalled.

“Dr. King’s legacy had a profound impact on me and my generation, whether you’re Black or white,” Biden explained. He left the law firm to become first a public defender and then a county councilman, “working to change our state’s politics to embrace the cause of civil rights.” 

The Democratic Party had historically championed white supremacy, but that alignment was in the process of changing as Democrats had swung behind civil rights and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Biden and his cohort hoped to turn the Delaware Democratic Party toward the new focus on civil rights, he said. In 1972, Biden ran for the Senate and won…barely, in a state Republican president Richard Nixon won with 60% of the vote. 

Biden recalled how, newly elected and hiring staff in Washington, D.C., he got the call telling him that his wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident and that his two sons were gravely injured. The pain of that day hit again 43 years later, he said, when his son Beau died of cancer after living for a year next to a burn pit in Iraq. And he talked of meeting First Lady Jill Biden, “who healed the family in all the broken places. Our family became my redemption,” he said. 

His focus on family and community offered a strong contrast to the Republican emphasis on individualism. “On this walk of life...you come to understand that we don’t know where or what fate will bring you or when,” Biden said. “But we also know we don’t walk alone. When you’ve been a beneficiary of the compassion of your family, your friends, even strangers, you know how much the compassion matters,” he said. “I’ve learned there is no easy optimism, but by faith—by faith, we can find redemption.”

For the graduates, Biden noted, four years ago “felt like one of those Saturdays. The pandemic robbed you of so much. Some of you lost loved ones—mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, who…aren’t able to be here to celebrate with you today….  You missed your high school graduation. You started college just as George Floyd was murdered and there was a reckoning on race. 

“It’s natural to wonder if democracy you hear about actually works for you. 

“What is democracy if Black men are being killed in the street?

“What is democracy if a trail of broken promises still leave[s]…Black communities behind?

“What is democracy if you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot?

“And most of all, what does it mean, as we’ve heard before, to be a Black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?” 

The crowd applauded.

Biden explained that across the Oval Office from his seat behind the Resolute Desk are busts of Dr. King and Senator Robert Kennedy, challenging Biden: “Are we living up to what we say we are as a nation, to end racism and poverty, to deliver jobs and justice, to restore our leadership in the world?” He wears a rosary on his wrist made of Beau’s rosary as a reminder that faith asks us “to hold on to hope, to move heaven and earth to make better days.” 

“[T]hat’s my commitment to you,” he said. “[T]o show you democracy, democracy, democracy is still the way.”

Biden pledged to “call out the poison of white supremacy” and noted that he “stood up…with George Floyd’s family to help create a country where you don’t need to have that talk with your son or grandson as they get pulled over.” The administration is investing in Black communities and reconnecting neighborhoods cut apart by highways decades ago. It has reduced Black child poverty to the lowest rate in history. It is removing lead pipes across the nation to provide clean drinking water to everyone, and investing in high-speed internet to bring all households into the modern era. 

The administration is creating opportunities, Biden said, bringing “good-paying jobs…; capital to start small businesses and loans to buy homes; health insurance, [prescription] drugs, housing that’s more affordable and accessible.” Biden reminded the audience that he had joined workers on a picket line. To applause, he noted that when the Supreme Court blocked his attempt to relieve student debt, he found two other ways to do it. He noted the administration’s historic investment in historically black colleges and universities. 

“We’re opening doors so you can walk into a life of generational wealth, to be providers and leaders for your families and communities.  Today, record numbers of Black Americans have jobs, health insurance, and more [wealth] than ever.”

Then Biden directly addressed the student protests over the Israeli government’s strikes on Gaza. At Morehouse today, one graduate stood with his back to Biden and his fist raised during the president’s speech, and the class valedictorian, DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, who spoke before the president, wore a picture of a Palestinian flag on his mortarboard and called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, at which Biden applauded.

“In a democracy, we debate and dissent about America’s role in the world,” Biden said. “I want to say this very clearly. I support peaceful, nonviolent protest. Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them.” 

“What’s happening in Gaza…is heartbreaking,” he said, with “[i]nnocent Palestinians caught in the middle” of a fight between Hamas and Israel. He reminded them that he has called “for an immediate ceasefire…to stop the fighting [and] bring the hostages home.” His administration has been working for a deal, as well as to get more aid into Gaza and to rebuild it. Crucially, he added, there is more at stake than “just one ceasefire.” He wants “to build a lasting, durable peace. Because the question is…: What after? What after Hamas? What happens then? What happens in Gaza? What rights do the Palestinian people have?” To applause, he said, “I’m working to make sure we finally get a two-state solution—the only solution—for two people to live in peace, security, and dignity.” 

“This is one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world,” he said. “I know it angered and frustrates many of you, including my family. But most of all, I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well. Leadership is about fighting through the most intractable problems. It’s about challenging anger, frustration, and heartbreak to find a solution. It’s about doing what you believe is right, even when it’s hard and lonely. You’re all future leaders, every one of you graduating today…. You’ll face complicated, tough moments. In these moments, you’ll listen to others, but you’ll have to decide, guided by knowledge, conviction, principle, and your own moral compass.”

Turning back to the United States, Biden urged the graduates to examine “what happens to you and your family when old ghosts in new garments seize power, extremists come for the freedoms you thought belonged to you and everyone.” He noted attacks on equality in America, and that extremist forces were peddling “a fiction, a caricature [of] what being a man is about—tough talk, abusing power, bigotry. Their idea of being a man is toxic.” 

“But that’s not you,” he continued. “It’s not us. You all know and demonstrate what it really means to be a man. Being a man is about the strength of respect and dignity. It’s about showing up because it’s too late if you have to ask. It’s about giving hate no safe harbor and leaving no one behind and defending freedoms. It’s about standing up to the abuse of power, whether physical, economic, or psychological.” To applause, he added: “It’s about knowing faith without works is dead.”

“The strength and wisdom of faith endures,” Biden said. “And I hope—my hope for you is—my challenge to you is that you still keep the faith so long as you can.” 

“Together, we’re capable of building a democracy worthy of our dreams…a bigger, brighter future that proves the American Dream is big enough for everyone to succeed.”

“Class of 2024, four years ago, it felt probably like Saturday,” Biden concluded. “Four years later, you made it to Sunday, to commencement, to the beginning. And with faith and determination, you can push the sun above the horizon once more….”

“God bless you all,” he said. “We’re expecting a lot from you.”

—

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/05/19/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-morehouse-college-class-of-2024-commencement-address-atlanta-ga/

https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/wilmington-del-riots-occupation-martin-luther-king-jr-national-guard-20181207.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/morehouse-graduation-thanks-god-woke-class-2024-2024-05-19/

Some personal notes on heart

 This view shows the LAD, or left anterior descending (or interventricular) artery, which feeds the heart itself.

That's where they gave me a stent, and the photo my cardiologist showed me (not this one) was a heart without any LAD. He said that's what mine had looked like before the stent was applied. Someone in my treatment mentioned this heart attack was known as "the widow-maker." So I'm incredibly thankful to be alive.

It's pretty incredible that they found that problem by running a tiny scanning device with a camera at the end, up my right brachial artery from my wrist to my heart. And somehow, by then I was asleep thank heaven, they put the stent in the same way. The only opening I had was that tiny cut on my wrist. How simple surgery now is and almost non-invasive.

I had my heart attack out of the blue 4 years ago. No afib. But pain in my neck kept me from sleeping for 2 days, and I went to my regular MD (as a walk-in patient) who changed my BP meds, and maybe told me something about using pain relievers. The pain relievers over the counter had not worked and I was exhausted from being awake and in pain, some coughing which is chronic for me. Finally on evening of 3rd day a friend drove me to ER, and after the 2nd EKG (MD's office EKG was vague) and several tests of blood they determined a heart attack, and gave me a stent on the LAD artery which feeds the heart. If the EKG from the MD's office had been accurate, they would have sent me to the hospital two days earlier. Yes, this was an ongoing event, not sharp and accute!

Women don't always have symptoms like men! That's the main underlining point here. I'd tell each physician I saw about excruciating pain in my neck and shoulders. Some tightness felt in chest. That was the way I got treated as a heart patient...otherwise they would have left me in the waiting room with everyone else. Heart patients do get immediate care.

I'm not going into all the details about being given care in the second month that COVID hit all the hospitals...and my having COPD and bronchiectasis (a chronic cough.) I've talked about that elsewhere.

I just hope women will take seriously heart problems that appear as non-traditional pains especially if they already have high blood pressure or other indicators that might lead to heart attacks.

I have changed my diet and now exercise much more regularly, and have lost about 20 pounds in the last 4 years.

Keep on ticking, all you lovely heart beating women (and men too)!!

Today's quote:

The more we practice settling our minds, the easier it will become over time.

Family women and some old (and new) cars

 I've run into some interesting, mostly historic sites and photos this week.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday!

Two of my favorite subjects: women and cars!

French Automobile called the Leyit Helica...produced in the Early 1920’s. Yes, propellers out front to pull it along! Beware of birds!

A Tesla in the family...my daughter-in-law's step father, Gerry standing next to it! Wish I'd had a chance to ride in it, but no offers came my way.

Corvette parked in neighbor's yard. Don't know much about it except it is just sitting in the weather.

You may have seen my post about this sleek Oldsmobile parked at the entrance to the swimming pool at Lake Tomahawk earlier this week.

Being a fellow craftsman, I enjoy seeing the product of many hours of attention to this vehicle.

Seen in the neighborhood of Ohio State University

But what about the women?

I never met this lovely woman on the r., mother of one of my daughters-in-law and her sister. Photo of mother probably in the 1950s. Daughter-in-law on the left has many of her same characteristics, an elegant woman with deep beauty.

Sister of my daughter-in-law.

My oldest son and his wife, daughter of first mother pictured above. She is a chef extraordinaire! Holding a cranberry cheesecake as desert, with candied frozen cranberries around. That was after a great prime rib dinner for Christmas, 2019. She has since become a Macaron chef, selling her inspired home-made cookies at various fairs in St. Petersburg and Tampa, FL.

Here I was eating my first Macaron by my daughter-in-law.

Another daughter-in-law, married to my youngest son...here they were Halloween costumed as Dali and Frieda Kahlo.

And my exact match to Sepia's theme this week...(though I may have shared it before!)

1927, my Grand-Aunt Margaret and her friend, Mrs.Summess. (Is that a name?) Aunt Margaret on r. And it does look like Mrs. S. has a dog on her chest!

Grand-Aunt Margaret. Considering she taught high school all her adult life, as well as sewing many of her own clothes, she enjoyed life by gambling in Cuba before the revolution.

Another daughter-in-law (on r.) with my granddaughter (much younger than present) in the middle. And another grandmother in common, mother of that daughter-in-law on the l. They shared a trip to New York city (not sure when). This was my oldest son's first wife, and mother of two of his children. Aren't families fun?

My oldest granddaughter wearing the cloisonné enamel necklace which I gave to her for Christmas last year. (I'm giving my granddaughters my various special pieces of costume jewelry, little by little.)

And I'm kicking myself because I never took any photos of the locket (called a charm by my other granddaughter) which I gave to her for her college graduation. My grandmother had given it to me for my high school graduation, just before she died. This granddaughter has just spent 2 weeks in Europe. So I'll try to get her to take a photo of it soon.

My other daughter-in-law is married to my middle son, who I just visited in Ohio for that graduation! 

Granddaughter, daughter-in-law, and my middle son at graduation party.

I love sharing being grandmothers with this lady, my daughter-in-laws' mother. Yes, there are many other relations in my family. But this is all I'm sharing today!

Today's quote:

"To succeed in science, you have to avoid dumb people [...] you must always turn to people who are brighter than yourself." - biophysicist, James Dewey Watson

P.S.

Earlier this week I posted an article from a former slave, William Branch. After seeing many other posts by the author on Facebook, I've concluded that it is a true account of his life. The author is Evita Ellis. There are many other interesting stories she's posted. So I don't think AI was the source.

If this isn't true, at least it's good reading!

 William Branch

"Yahsur, I was a slave. I was bo'n May 13, 1850, on the place of Lawyer Woodson in Lunenburg County, Virginia. It was 'bout 75 miles southwest of Richmond. They was two big plantations, one on one side the road, yother the yother. My marster owned 75 slaves. He raised tobacco and cotton. I wukked tobacco sometime, sometime cotton. Dere wasn't no whippin' or switchin'. We had to wuk hard. Marster Woodson was a rich man. He live in a great big house, a lumber house painted white. And it had a great big garden.

"De slaves lives in a long string of log houses. Dey had dirt floors and shingle roofs. Marster Woodson's house was shingle roof too. We had home cured bacon and veg'tables, dried co'n, string beans and dey give us hoe cakes baked in hot ashes. Dere always was lots of fresh milk.

"How'd us slaves git de clothes? We carded de cotton, den de women spin it on a spinnin' wheel. After dat day sew de gahment togeddah on a sewin' machine. Yahsur, we's got sewin' machine, wid a big wheel and a handle. One woman tu'n de handle and de yuther woman do de sewin'.

"Dat's how we git de clothes for de 75 slaves. Marster's clothes? We makes dem for de whole fam'ly. De missis send de pattren and de slaves makes de clothes. Over nigh Richmond a fren' of Marster Woodson has 300 slaves. Dey makes all de clothes for dem.

"I was with Marster twel de Yankees come down to Virginia in 1861. De sergeant of de Yankees takes me up on his hoss and I goes to Washington wid de Yankees. I got to stay dere 'cause I'd run away from my marster.

"I stay at de house of Marse Frank Cayler. He's an ole time hack driver. I was his houseboy. I stay dere twel de year 1870, den I goes to Baltimore and jines de United States Army. We's sent to Texas 'count of de Indians bein' so bad. Dey put us on a boat at Baltimore and we landed at Galveston.

"Den we marches from Galveston to Fort Duncan. It was up, up, de whole time. We ties our bedclothes and rolls dem in a bundle wid a strap. We walks wid our guns and bedclothes on our backs, and de wagons wid de rations follows us. Dey is pulled by mules. We goes 15 miles ev'ry day. We got no tents, night come, we unrolls de blankets and sleeps under de trees, sometime under de brush.

"For rations we got canned beans, milk and hardtack. De hard tacks is 3 or 4 in a box, we wets 'em in water and cooks 'em in a skillet. We gits meat purty often. When we camps for de night de captain say, 'You'all kin go huntin'.' Before we git to de mountains dere's deer and rabbits and dey ain't no fences. Often in de dark we sees a big animal and we shoots. When we bring 'im to camp, de captain say, 'Iffen de cow got iron burns de rancher gwineter shoot hisself a nigger scout.' But de cow ain't got no iron, it'swhat de name of de cow what ain't feel de iron? Mavrick, yahsur. We eats lots of dem Mavricks. We's goin' 'long de river bottom, and before we comes to Fort Duncan we sees de cactus and muskeet. Dere ain't much cattle, but one colored scout shoots hisself a bear. Den we eats high. Fort Duncan were made of slab lumber and de roof was gravel and grass.

"Den we's ordered to Fort Davis and we's in de mountains now. Climb, climb all day, and de Indians give us a fit ev'ry day. We kills some Indians, dey kills a few soldiers. We was at Fort Clark a while. At Fort Davis I jines de colored Indian Scouts, I was in Capt. George L. Andrew's Co. K.

"We's told de northern Cheyennes is on a rampus and we's goin' to Fort Sill in Indian Territory. Before we gits to Fort Concho (San Angelo) de Comanches and de Apaches give us a fit. We fitten' 'em all de time and when we gits away from de Comanches and Apaches we fitten de Cheyennes. Dey's seven feet tall. Dey couldn't come through that door.

"When we gits to Fort Sill, Gen. Davidson say de Cheyennes is off de reservation, and he say, 'You boys is got to git dem back. Iffen you kill 'em, dey can't git back to de reservation.' Den we goes scoutin' for de Cheyennes and dey is scoutin' for us. Dey gits us first, on de Wichita River was 500 of 'em, and we got 75 colored Indian Scouts. Den Red Foot, de Chief of de Cheyennes, he come to see Capt. Lawson and say he want rations for his Indians. De captain say he cain't give no rations to Indians off de reservation. Red Foot say he don't care 'bout no reservation and he say he take what we got. Capt. Lawson 'low we gotter git reinforcements. We got a guide in de scout troop, he call hisself Jack Kilmartin. De captain say, 'Jack, I'se in trouble, how kin I git a dispatch to Gen. Davidson?' Jack say, 'I kin git it through.' And Jack, he crawl on his belly and through de brush and he lead a pony, and when he gits clear he rides de pony bareback twel he git to Fort Sill. Den Gen. Davidson, he soun' de gin'ral alarm and he send two companies of cavalry to reinforce us. But de Cheyennes give 'em a fit all de way, dey's gotter cut dere way through de Cheyennes.

"And Col. Shafter comes up, and goes out in de hills in his shirt sleeves jus' like you's sittin' dere. Dey's snow on de groun' and de wind's cole, but de colonel don't care, and he say, 'Whut's dis order Gen. Davidson give? Don' kill de Cheyennes? You kill 'em all from de cradle to de Cross.'

"And den we starts de attack. De Cheyennes got Winchesters and rifles and repeaters from de government. Yahsur, de government give 'em de guns dey used to shoot us. We got de ole fashion muzzle loaders. You puts one ball in de muzzle and shove de powder down wid de ramrod. Den we went in and fit 'em, and 'twas like fightin' a wasp's nest. Dey kills a lot of our boys and we nearly wipes 'em out. Den we disarms de Cheyennes we captures, and turns dere guns in to de regiment.

"I come to San Antonio after I'se mustered out and goes to work for de Bell Jewelry Company and stays dere twel I cain't work no more. Did I like de army? Yahsur, I'd ruthuh be in de army dan a plantation slave."

Source:

Facebook Evita Ellis 

The good news from AOC

Americans of Conscience Checklist--May 13, 2024

 Good news matters!

We do good news because we know that negative news is designed to keep you emotionally hooked. The more time you watch, the more advertisements you see. Make a choice today to moderate your consumption of negative news, and instead, join us in reveling about all the good things happening in our nation recently:

• Congress passes and the president signs the reauthorization of funding for migratory bird conservation.
• The Biden-Harris administration requires federally-funded state & Tribal foster care agencies to ensure that LGBTQI+ youth are placed in homes where they will be safe from discrimination, harassment, and so-called “conversion therapy.”
• Danna Jackson (Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes) is nominated to serve as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for Montana, potentially becoming the first Indigenous person to serve as a federal judge in the state.
• The DOJ will file an antitrust suit against Live Nation for its monopoly on entertainment ticket sales.
• The FTC bans new noncompete clauses for all agency workers, protecting the freedom of employees to change jobs.
• CA’s energy grid recently ran only on clean energy sources for 9.5 hours.
• KS’s legislature votes to sustain Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of legislation that would have banned gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.
• MD passes a slate of legislation to improve access to affordable housing and protect renters, including a Tenants Bill of Rights.
• NE residents with past felony convictions are automatically eligible to vote upon completion of their sentences under newly-passed legislation.
• PA: CVS Health Plans and Geisinger Health Plans cover over-the-counter contraception with or without a prescription at no cost.
• A federal appeals court rules that it is discriminatory for WV and NC to refuse coverage of gender-affirmative healthcare for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance.
• Middletown, RI high school students run a voter registration drive for their classmates as part of the Secretary of State’s Civic Liaison Program.
• The League of Women Voters' resource website, Vote411.org, is nominated for a Webby Award in the Government & Associations: Websites and Mobile Sites category.
• Kids with incarcerated parents can enjoy story time with them at Becca’s Place, a cozy reading area within Chicago’s Cook County Department of Corrections.
• Construction on the U.S.’s first high-speed rail begins in the southwest.

 

Want to support more good news 

Unlike negative news networks, AoCC doesn't ever sell ads, so we rely on the support of people like you to fund our modest operational costs. If you make a monthly contribution of $3-25 per month, you'll support Americans taking action for democracy and equality and also receive our good news lists a week early! Learn more here.

A bit political today, the cowboy myth

Today I read with pleasure "Letters from an American" by Heather Cox Richardson. And I quote:

"I write a lot about how the Biden-Harris administration is working to restore the principles of the period between 1933 and 1981, when members of both political parties widely shared the belief that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. And I write about how that so-called liberal consensus broke down as extremists used the Reconstruction-era image of the American cowboy—who, according to myth, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone—to stand against what they insisted was creeping socialism that stole tax dollars from hardworking white men in order to give handouts to lazy minorities and women. 

But five major stories over the past several days made me realize that I’ve never written about how Trump and his loyalists have distorted the cowboy image until it has become a poisonous caricature of the values its recent defenders have claimed to champion.

The cowboy myth originated during the Reconstruction era as a response to the idea that a government that defended Black rights was “socialist” and that the tax dollars required to pay bureaucrats and army officers would break hardworking white men. 

This weekend, on Saturday, May 11, Paul Kiel of ProPublica and Russ Buettner of the New York Times teamed up to deliver a deep investigation into what Trump was talking about when he insisted that he must break tradition and refuse to release his tax returns when he ran for office in 2016 and 2020, citing an audit.

The New York Times had already reported that one of the reasons the Internal Revenue Service was auditing Trump’s taxes was that, beginning in 2010, he began to claim a $72.9 million tax refund because of huge losses from his failing casinos.  

Kiel and Buettner followed the convoluted web of Trump’s finances to find another issue with his tax history. They concluded that Trump’s Chicago skyscraper, his last major construction project, was “a vast money loser.” He claimed losses as high as $651 million on it in 2008. But then he appears to have moved ownership of the building in 2010 from one entity to a new one—the authors describe it as “like moving coins from one pocket to another”—and used that move to claim another $168 million in losses, thereby double-dipping. 

The experts the authors consulted said that if he loses the audit battle, Trump could owe the IRS more than $100 million. University of Baltimore law professor Walter Schwidetzky, who is an expert on partnership taxation, told the authors: “I think he ripped off the tax system.” 

The cowboy myth emphasized dominance over the Indigenous Americans and Mexicans allegedly attacking white settlers from the East. On Friday an impressive piece of reporting from Jude Joffe-Block at NPR untangled the origins of a story pushed by Republicans that Democrats were encouraging asylum seekers to vote illegally for President Joe Biden in 2024, revealing that the story was entirely made up.  

The story broke on X, formerly Twitter, on April 15, when the investigative arm of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which promises to provide “aggressive oversight” of the Biden administration, posted photos of what it claimed were flyers from inside portable toilets at a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, that said in broken Spanish: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.” The tweet thread got more than 9 million views and was boosted by Elon Musk, X’s owner.

But the story was fabricated. The flyer used the name of a small organization that helps asylum seekers, along with the name of the woman who runs the organization. She is a U.S. citizen and told Joffe-Block that her organization has “never encouraged people to vote for anyone.” Indeed, it has never come up because everyone knows noncitizens are not eligible to vote. The flyer had outdated phone numbers and addresses, and its Spanish was full of errors. Migrants who are staying at the encampment as they wait for their appointments to enter the U.S. say they have never seen such flyers, and no one has urged them to vote for Biden.

Digging showed that the flyer was “discovered” by the right-wing video site Muckraker, which specializes in “undercover” escapades. The founder of Muckraker, Anthony Rubin, and his brother, Joshua Rubin, had shown up at the organization’s headquarters in Matamoros asking to become volunteers for the organization; they and their conversation were captured on video, and signs point to the conclusion that they planted the flyers. 

Nonetheless, Republicans ran with the story. Within 12 hours after the fake flyer appeared on X, Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Dan Bishop (R-NC) brought posters of it to Congress, and Republicans made it a centerpiece of their insistence that Congress must pass a new law against noncitizen voting. Rather than being protected by modern-day cowboys, the woman who ran the organization that helps asylum seekers got death threats.

The cowboy image emphasized the masculinity of the independent men it championed, but the testimony of Stephanie Clifford, the adult film actress also known as Stormy Daniels, in Trump’s criminal trial for falsifying business records to cover up his payments to Clifford to keep her story of their sexual encounter secret before the 2016 election, turns Trump’s aggressive dominance into sad weakness. Covering Clifford’s testimony, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times yesterday wrote that “Trump came across as a loser in her account—a narcissist, cheater, sad Hugh Hefner wannabe, trading his satin pajamas for a dress shirt and trousers (and, later, boxers) as soon as Stormy mocked him.”

In the literature of the cowboy myth, the young champion of the underdog is eventually supposed to settle down and take care of his family, who adore him. But the news of the past week has caricatured that shift, too. On Wednesday, May 8, the Republican Party of Florida announced that it had picked Trump’s youngest son, 18-year-old Barron, as one of the state’s at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention, along with Trump’s other sons, Eric and Donald Jr.; Don Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle; and Trump’s second daughter, Tiffany, and her husband. 

On Friday, May 10, Trump’s current wife and Barron’s mother, former first lady Melania Trump, issued a statement saying: “While Barron is honored to have been chosen as a delegate by the Florida Republican Party, he regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments.” It is hard not to interpret this extraordinary snub from his own wife and son as a chilly response to the past month of testimony about his extramarital escapades while Barron was an infant.

Finally, there was the eye-popping story broken by Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow in the Washington Post on Thursday, revealing that last month, at a private meeting with about two dozen top oil executives at Mar-a-Lago, Trump offered to reverse President Joe Biden’s environmental rules designed to combat climate change and to stop any new ones from being enacted in exchange for a $1 billion donation. 

Trump has promised his supporters that he would be an outsider, using his knowledge of business to defend ordinary Americans against those elites who don’t care about them. Now he has been revealed as being willing to sell us out—to sell humanity out—for the bargain basement price of $1 billion (with about 8 billion people in the world, this would make us each worth about 12 and a half cents). 

Chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration Richard Painter wrote: “This is called bribery. It’s a felony.” He followed up with “Even a candidate who loses can be prosecuted for bribery. That includes the former guy asking for a billion dollars in campaign cash from oil companies in exchange for rolling back environmental laws.”

The cowboy myth was always a political image, designed to undermine the idea of a government that worked for ordinary Americans. It was powerful after the Civil War but faded into the past in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s as Americans realized that their lives depended on government regulation and a basic social safety net. The American cowboy burst back into prominence with the advent of the Marlboro Man in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, and the idea of an individual white man who worked hard, wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone, was a sex symbol, and protected his women became a central myth in the rise of politicians determined to overturn the liberal consensus. 

Now it seems the myth has come full circle, with the party led by a man whose wife rejects him and whose lovers ridicule him, who makes up stories about dangerous “others,” cheats on his taxes, solicits bribes, and tries to sell out his followers for cash—the very caricature the mythological cowboy was invented to fight.

—

Notes:

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-irs-audit-chicago-hotel-taxes

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/10

/1248599505/migrants-vote-biden-conspiracy-theory-social-media

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/10/1250585392/takeaways-migration-biden-flyer-matamoros

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/11/opinion/trump-stormy-daniels-trial.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-oil-industry-campaign-money/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/barron-trump-florida-delegate-republican-national-convention-rcna151388

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/barron-trump-declines-invitation-delegate-republican-convention-rcna151761

Twitter (X):

rwpusa/status/1789632040054165516

Children make you a mother

 

These were the sons of my grandmother Ada Rogers, (named out of order... should say Alexander, George, James, Chauncey!)

Ada Rogers with her granddaughters, Mary Beth and Barbara Rogers (me) around 1947. I still like to carry my purse across my body!

The Rogers clan in 1957...Poppy (George Rogers Sr.) myself, my father George Jr, and his brother, James. In back my mother (Mataley) right behind me, and Gummy (Ada Rogers) highest., the matriarch of the family if ever there was one!

On the other side of the family, my grandmother Mozelle Munhall and my mother Mataley in 1924

A great shot of my mother from the 1950s

My sister, myself and my mother around 1960

My parents and my first 2 sons, grandmother Mataley, then son Marty, George Rogers then me holding son Russ.

My three sons, Marty holding Russ, holding Tai, 1981

Fast forward, my eldest son, Marty on l, his daughter Cayenne, his (then) wife and mother of his children, Cinnamon, and his son William with me standing on Mother's Day 2006 or 07.

Son Marty, and second wife Barbara.

Son Russ and wife Michelle

Russ' family; daughter Audrey, wife Michelle, Russ, daughter Caroline, daughter Kate, about 2023

Son Tai and wife Kendra (they don't like posed photos!)

My 70th in 2012, going around the circle...Michelle, Tai, Kate, Audrey, Marty, William, Cayenne, Caroline, myself, Russ. (Kendra was photographer!)

And My 80th in 2022! G-son William, G-dtr Cayenne, G-dtr Audrey in back, son Russ, G-dtr Caroline in back, myself, son Tai in back, son Marty, G-son Michael. Missing Michelle and Kate. Kendra once again photographer!

Happy Mother's Day to all who choose to have children, and to all women who choose to be creative in other ways!